HOLMDEL - Two School Board members will be publicly reprimanded for violating state ethics rules when they wrongfully accused a district employee and the former schools superintendent of criminal conduct, the state commissioner of education said.

The Commissioner and School Ethics Commission affirmed an earlier ruling by an administrative law judge to censure School Board members Ana Vander Woude and Dennis Pavlik for breaking six of the 10 ethics guidelines that govern School Board members. Per statute, the censure, essentially a formal reprimand, will be read aloud at the next School Board meeting Oct. 19 and posted as a public notice.

Vander Woude and Pavlik said Thursday that they stood by their actions and that it was their duty to report possible wrongdoing. "I did the right thing," said Pavlik, a six-year School Board member and police sergeant in Bergen County. "Until this day, I did nothing wrong. It’s upsetting."

"Ethics complaints should not be used as a way to attack a person who raises a genuine issue of concern," Vander Woude added. "The whole issue was something that spiraled out of control."

Both said they do not plan to appeal. "As a school district we are now in a very good place. It served no functional purposes to continue appealing," Vander Woude said.

The years-long ethics case began when then Superintendent Barbara Duncan and then School Board president Barbara Garrity filed ethics charges against Vander Woude and Pavlik, who remain on the board.

In 2012, Vander Woude and Pavlik raised concerns that Meryl Gill, the district's director of special services, was working for another district while on Holmdel's payroll. They also said now-retired Superintendent Duncan was complicit or negligent in the matter, according to the decision.

The ethics violations occurred, the ethics panel found, when Vander Woude and Pavlik made accusations and determined guilt before an investigation was complete, provided "false impressions to the public," and made references to an unrelated child abuse scandal that "raise public anxiety needlessly."

Holmdel School Board member Dennis Pavlik(Photo: Handout)

"I found it profoundly disturbing and troubling and it was destructive to the functioning of the board," said Garrity, who served on the School Board from 2005-2015. "That’s why I filed (the charges), my feeling was this cannot be; this cannot be right. The two of them were unrepentant about it. The education system operates in many ways on trust; parents have to trust us to take good care of their children."

A district investigation into whether Gill was double-dipping found that she had taken one phone call and responded to roughly 20 emails for her other job while on the clock for Holmdel. Gill also notified the district she was employed in another district prior to the allegations, the investigation found. She was not charged with any wrongdoing.

Former Superintendent Duncan did not respond to a request for comment. Garrity said she was happy to have a final answer in the case but disappointed it took so long. "I wish it had been done faster because I do think that more serious consequences would have been merited," she said.

Pavlik, the board's vice president, disputed the ethics charges and said they were part of a vendetta certain board members had against him. He said he followed the chain of command and contended there was no public outcry over any of their public comments.

"This costs so much money and so much taxpayers' time and really, it’s for nothing," he said, estimating more than $90,000 has been spent in attorney fees."I want to move past it, it's done, done, done. It's been going on for years. I want to go forward."

Pavlik, 50, is running for re-election to his School Board seat but says he's not concerned about the public reprimand. Vander Woude will not seek re-election but said her decision was unrelated to the ethics case.

"This happened four years ago and Dennis and I have continued to serve on the board. Anybody who knows us, who knows how we function, knows we are deeply committed to our community and to the children of our school district," she said.